Artists Jim Darling and Revok recently collaborated on this found object art installation in an abandoned church in the heart of Detroit. Working on the piece for two days, the artists dragged an organ up two flights of stairs along with any other pieces of debris in the vicinity they could use to assemble the infinity symbol shown here.

Roughly 5am and laid out on an ER stretcher in downtown Detroit. Hooked up to an IV with steroids to fight off a violating case of Pneumonia, I was lounged and listened to a masked crack dealer laying beside me, enthusiastically muffled, connected to an asthma machine. “You sound like Danny De Vito, you from New York huh? How the fuck they sell crack out there with all those cops?”. This dealer goes on the tell me how if you make more that 10k slinging in his neighborhood you have to cut in the cops, the curruption and jailing of Detroit’s mayor, and how he was passed out on a sofa in the trap, high as fuck on some banger weed, post dome from a customer. “Woke up in shock an shit, unable to breathe an called an ambulance cause I was gon die”.

After hours of that type of talk it was 8am. Time for discharge, a cab back to the Detroit hotel /casino I was staying at for a few successful hands of black jack, to get in the game for a full day of shooting of the following video…

RIME & 1xRUN PRESENTS: “WRAP SHEETS DETROIT FANTASTIC”
In Detroit the streets be wild and only the most thug motherfuckers come out on top, falling on both sides of the law. Veteran detective Rimessy Foley diffuses terrorists attacks, lays the hammer down on sucker mc’s, and comes up on dealers and crackheads. But at the end of the day he always finds time to artfully violate his paper work and rewrite the Arrest Sheet.

“Sit around long enough and you’re bound to come up with something interesting. Whether it’s an all night drawing session, or a series of half-joking ideas blurted out in brainstorming meetings at the 1xRUN headquarters to come up with something new for a promo video.The only agreed upon point was that if we’re going to put out a video, we might as well have fun making it. Our main goal was to create something obscenely retarded, but cool. Whether it’s on found arrest sheets or in a three minute online video, a bullshit story thrown out there should come across as amusing, somewhat offensive, and (hopefully) viewable.” – Rime

The Detroit Beautification Project assembled artist’s from around the globe. With the the common goal to bring vibrancy back to one of America’s greatest cities.
Presented By Montana Cans, The Seventh Letter, 1xRun, Contra Projects

An off the cuff production with Revok started on my second day in Detroit. No sketches or real game plan, just good times painting. A few onlookers asked me what’s going on in the wall. The response was varied based on my mood, but the explanation that I settled with with was that the beast was Detroit, and chicks from the suburbs flock to his dangerous ass. The want action, they want to be in the belly of the beast. Naah meen?

As the chill of winter has given way to the warm hues of spring here in Detroit, we’re excited to unveil our most recent public arts project that will bring over a dozen of the world’s premier graffiti artists into the city for a series of murals in the neighborhoods that need them the most.

We are presenting this never before seen image of a piece REVOK created in a now demolished church back in 2009 during his first visit to Detroit. In what is commonplace in the world of graffiti & street art, an artist will go to great lengths creating a piece of work in certain location, only to have the works lifespan cut short by city clean up crews, over zealous and mentally disturbed vigilantes or rival artists… Or in this case a demolition wrecking ball. The work often lives on only in the documentation of a few, or in this case one image.

To coincide with the first phase of the project we’re excited to release a series of prints with several of the participating artists including RISK, SEVER, STEEL, REYES, DMOTE, WANE, CES, REVOK, Tristan Eaton, Dabs Myla, 123 Klan and POSE.

For the first RUN of the Detroit Beautification Project we’re excited to present our very first print by REVOK. His vision for the Detroit Beautification Project is to uplift communities and brighten the day of the residents of the great City of Detroit.

Born in Riverside, Ca. in 1977 Los Angeles based REVOK discovered art through his fathers collection of 60′s & 70′s album covers, comic books, and skateboarding. In 1990 REVOK began sneaking out of the 2nd story window of his parents home to write graffiti around his neighborhood… 22 years later not much has changed despite numerous arrests, Jail time and fines in the U.S. and overseas.

REVOK enjoys traveling and painting graffiti, He is currently the target of a political war against Graffiti and street art led by Los Angeles city attorney Carmen Trutanich and the L.A. Sheriffs dept. REVOK’s work explores the struggle between opposing perspectives that is perpetual action around us in our shared common spaces.

In 2011 REVOK was featured in MOCA LA’s in the “Art in the streets” Exhibition. The Pasadena Musuem of Contemporary art’s “Street Cred”, “PERSEVERENCE” at KNOWN gallery and “TRIUMPH & TRAGEDY” in Hamburg’s Vicious gallery.